Empowering Learning Journeys: The DoodleMaths Design Journey

 

Introducing DoodleMaths, an Educational App designed to provide primary-aged children with affordable bespoke tuition for 10 minutes a day, seamlessly fitting into busy family routines.

Originally I joined their team as an intern shortly after graduation from university. Over the next few years I experienced working in a variety of roles, from sales admin, to marketing and operations, where I eventually found my home designing their mobile and desktop applications transition into a contractor role following the initial 6 month internship.

The Challenge

By 2016, DoodleMaths and DoodleTables had gained a good hold in the domestic market as well as within schools. The need for a tool to help parents and teachers track children’s progress easily and efficiently became transparent. A challenge arose in defining the visual identity of these new applications within tight budget and time constraints. Additionally, the need arose for a tool to help parents and teachers track children’s progress easily and efficiently.

We needed to take a look and find a solution to give our users what they need.  

What I did

There were four phases to this piece of work:

1, Define

– I gathered and analysed user feedback, laying the groundwork for understanding the needs and constraints of our audience. This provided crucial insights into shaping our approach.

    1. Consulted stakeholders to understand business needs
    2. In the absence of access to customers, I collated and reviewed feedback and requests from current users 
    3. Benchmarking and competitor analysis
    4. Define user personas – specifically noting how this experience would differ from the core apps designed for children
    5. Share vision with the organisation and agree a budget and timeline to deliver.

2, Execute

– Collaborating closely with the product owner, I crafted the design for the new application, ensuring it resonated with the intended audience while aligning with our brand identity. Careful consideration was given to elements like colour, typography, and page structure to create an engaging user experience.

    1. Take the initial research which told us this app needed to feel related to the main apps for pupils, but with a very different audience persona (parents and teachers, rather than 7-10 year olds) it needed to have a different, more mature style, and explore options
    2. Research data visualisations to understand the fidelity required for data accuracy
    3. Work with the product owner to trial, test and iterate to find the optimal layout
    4. Check in with the engineering team to ensure we had the data and could build the infrastructure required to support these designs within the timeframe available
    5. Review more inspirational products already in the market (such as daily habit/fitness tracking apps)
    6. Create design guidelines for this app
    7. Develop the wireframes into high fidelity designs, balancing brand legibility, data accuracy and accessibility
    8. Review and sign off with stakeholders
    9. After a few short design sprints, we handed over to the engineer, supporting the build process where needed and looking to how we let our customers know about this new tool.

3, Roll Out

– Working alongside co-founders and cross-functional teams, I played a pivotal role in launching the new application.

  • While the engineer took the flows and screens, and built the frontend and a backend to provide the correct user data to the UI
  • I worked with the co founders to create the app store listing, the launch correspondence to schools and parents on our mailing lists as well as information sheets to distribute at conferences and direct to our current and prospective school customers.

4, Iterate

– Post-launch, I continued to gather feedback and iterate on the design to enhance user experience. Addressing customer feedback, solving bugs, and improving functionality remained ongoing priorities.

  • I analysed user feedback and managed a backlog of improvements for the app. I worked with the Product Owner to prioritise these. Where necessary and appropriate, this plan was fed back to the reporter 
  • Reviews in the app store also provided valuable insight from individuals who enjoyed our products and wanted to see it maintained and improved as well as users who had frustrations, but were invested enough to want us to fix it

Result

Some screens from the when we launched 

Impact

Parents and teachers have regularly fed back how they enjoy being able to easily keep an eye on their children/pupils’ progress accurately – and see trends over time. They can send words of encouragement. I remember one specific piece of feedback we had from a parent who travelled a lot with work really appreciated feeling a part of their child’s learning journey.  

In 2024, the app is currently rated 4.7 stars on the App Store.

Intrigued by what you see here? – I would love to hop on a call and talk to you about my work with DoodleMaths and any opportunities you have. Let’s chat: kat@gradino.co.uk

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